Dr. Ibrahim Al-Deeb
We believe that transformation is a major strategic paradigm shift in ideas, goals, approaches, means and tools. More comprehensive, deeper and more effective than Limited Partial Development.
I think it’s time to create opportunity and shift from the Forum to the global intellectual institutionalization.
We believe that diversity and difference in understanding and implementation are laws of the universe. And that the unity of the textual and intellectual reference of the one Islamic nation is a divine law binding on the success of workers to enable the word of the one God to be supreme.
We are working to build a single supreme intellectual reference for the Ummah, mobilizing and directing the projects of movements and individuals towards the revival of the next Islamic civilization.
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Deeb’s meeting with Mahathir Mohamad, Former Malaysian Prime Minister
Subject and objectives of the article:
The Kuala Lumpur Forum for Civilizational Thought has become a permanent global Islamic institution to produce civilizational thought and the normative reference necessary to meet the needs of the advancement of the Islamic Ummah:
1- Directing tendencies towards institutional transformation.
2- Explaining the areas and axes of transformation from the Forum to the Permanent Intellectual Institutionalization.
3- Setting the principles of the transformation document.
Elements of the article:
1- Introductory Explanatory Introduction: Facts and postulates.
2- Motives.
3- Intellectual significance in the vision, mission, objectives, areas of work and achievement of the forum.
4- The legitimacy necessary for the production and empowerment of civilized thought.
5- Transformation required.
6- The seven criteria for intellectual institutions capable of intellectual production capable of achieving civilizational rebirth.
7- Transformation results.
1- Introductory Explanatory Introduction: Facts and postulates.
One of the most important and dangerous global Islamic crises since the fall of the Islamic Succession in 1924 is, the absence of political unity and a single intellectual reference, which opened the door to penetration and dismantling, which we are still suffering from it until now. Especially with the subordination of major global Islamic institutions to the tutelage and influence of National’s political systems.
Muslims were encouraged by the establishment of the International Union of Muslim Scholars in 2004, that it would try to fill part of this blank, A decade later, in 2014, the Kuala Lumpur Forum for Civilizational Thought was established, which was distinguished from others by the participation of official figures and former statesmen with experience in institutional international work.
Introductory facts for the necessary transformation file:
1- Our Islamic crisis is essentially ideological and followed by the rest of the crises.
2- Islamic people in the Arab region suffer from the long crisis of disintegration, backwardness, weakness, dependence and Western penetration, until the fall of the Succession in 1924.
3- Throughout the period of military colonialism and political authoritarianism, Governed locally and internationally by a comprehensive international system culturally, economically, militarily and politically for 140 years. It caused the emergence of four successive generations to produce peoples that accept colonialism and coexist with it. And rely on it until some of them cannot live without dependence on colonialism, imagining liberation and return to unnecessary risk, and deciding to surrender and abandon the responsibility of making the solution itself, stressing that the solution to our crisis is in the hands of America, the leader of the international system.
4- The Arab Spring, and its success in a counter-revolution, imposed a shock and a state of intellectual fluidity to answer the questions of the stage.
5- Our Islamic peoples in the Arab region suffer from the tyranny of the international system, which is represented locally by its tyrannical regimes called the Arab National states.
6- We are Islamic reformist movements that carry out a global project to restore the civilizational revival of the Islamic Ummah.
7- We derive our legitimacy from the inspiration of heaven, our divine book, the Holy Quran, and our last messenger for all heavenly messages, and we proceed from the duty imposed by Allah on all Muslims of the world to work to achieve and enable the Islamic project of Allah’s architecture according to Allah’s approach, and to achieve justice, security and welfare for all people. We do not want, accept or need any legitimacy from anyone except Allah.
8- The legitimacy of our book and our message is divine, and the legitimacy of our civilized intellectual project is made with our minds, hands and blood.
9- We never accept an individualistic world order that imposes on us the unjust coexistence of a Western project that dominates the world and manages it with its own ideological zone. And put the Islamic project under siege, distortion, criminalization and exclusion. Rather, we work for an equal and fair coexistence between the self-contained global Islamic project, its privacy and its own strength for it and all Muslims of the world, and between multiple and diverse global systems and projects under global laws that regulate the life of the world, preserve privacy and achieve justice and peace for all.
2- The motives for transforming the intellectual forum into a global Intellectual Institution.
| 1- The disintegration, penetration and weakening of the current identity of Muslim societies. | 2- The absence of a unified intellectual unity and mobilization of workers on Islamic civilizational research.
States – movements – institutions – individuals. |
| 3- Falling under the tyranny of the Western world order culturally, politically, economically, militarily and its regional systems. | 4- Widening the scientific, technological, material and developmental gap between Islamic and Western societies. |
The table shows the geostrategic challenges facing the renaissance of the Islamic Ummah.
The first motive: the qualitative challenges facing the Ummah, where the Islamic Ummah faces four major intellectual challenges:
1- The disintegration, penetration and weakening of the current identity of Muslim societies.
2- The absence of a unified intellectual unity and mobilization of workers on Islamic civilizational research.
States – movements – institutions – individuals.
3- Falling under the tyranny of the Western world order culturally, politically, economically, militarily and its regional systems.
4- Widening the scientific, technological, material and developmental gap between Islamic and Western societies.
It associated with a set of important partial manifestations and challenges:
1- The absence of an independent, solid, regular, permanent Islamic intellectual institution responsible for the renewed intellectual production of the Ummah’s movement, due to two reasons:
- The fall of governmental scientific institutions under the systems of the Western world order.
- Closing Islamic movements to their own ideologies and Field Operational Tracks.
2- The absence of horizontal integration and intellectual vertical accumulation at the level of reform efforts starting from the Afghan 1870, and until now through the reform efforts of Muhammad Abdo, Rashid Rida, Ben Badis, SayyidQutb, Hassan al-Banna, Malik bin Nabi, Maududi, Nursi and Erbakan. Each is unique in its own experience, which was dominated by individual thought leadership, although in some of them there are institutional efforts for implementation only.
3- Most of the contemporary Islamic intellectual production did not find its opportunity in implementation, experiment, practical testing, revision and field evaluation.
4- The lack of knowledge tools necessary for scientific and intellectual production in intellectual forums, thinkers and individual researchers, and at research centre’s affiliated with civil society, due to their lack of link to renewable sources of data and converting them into information such as those owned by states and owned by the international system.
Note: Information systems can be designed to fill a large part of this deficiency, which led the current intellectual efforts and production to isolation far from reality and then its weakness and weak effectiveness.
5- The lack of confidence, the lack of determination, burying the spirit of adventure, going out on falsehood, standing on the limit of thinking, working in the available spaces drawn by the international system and its national systems, and turning into a formal state looking for mere existence and formal representation and strengthening inter-public relations, and performing functional roles to anesthetize the ongoing reformist spirit in the body of the nation, which is an unknown coordination with local systems and the international system.
Led to:
1- The absence of a compass and intellectual vision for a single strategy.
2- The dispersion and weakness of projects and intellectual products necessary to meet the challenges of the stage and cross into the future.
3- The disintegration of the contemporary intellectual product and the absence of its ability to determine its priorities, and then its inability to face the challenges of the stage and answer the questions of reality and the future.
4- Systematic intellectual penetrations of a large area of the minds of thinkers, scientists and intellectuals of the nation.
5- The magnitude and diversity of individual intellectual production that is not systematic and scientifically documented, which expresses the state of intellectual emotional reaction among those with sincere hearts and large minds that are trying to make something to face the challenges and get out of the crisis, but it is the logic of the inspiring individual and not the logic of the effective institution.
6- A state of random unplanned intellectual abundance that lacks institutionalization, leadership, guidance and support, which has become a consumption and depletion of minds and intellectual efforts and a waste of opportunities.
The second motive: a duty and panic to preserve the true Islamic identity and to confirm the intellectual existence, preservation and intellectual ability to deal with reality and cross into the future.
The third motive: responding to the institutional laws of the age, specialization, professionalism, unity and integration of science….. Etc.
Fourth motive: Investing in the success of the Forum for eight consecutive years.
The fifth motive: investing ongoing intellectual efforts and projects and organizing them in one intellectual project, towards one compass and distributing roles according to specialization.
The sixth motive: Helping reform movements and Islamic societies towards the optimal contemporary model of the new civilizational rebirth, which is to rally around an intellectual project from which development projects are launched for all areas of life, instead of the model haunted in the Muslim mind with the idea of an inspiring and sincere leader.
The seventh motive: It is necessary to fill the gap, provide a supreme authority, and appoint an official spokesman who speaks on behalf of contemporary Islamic thought and faces the major challenges facing Islam (tyranny, Islamophobia, phobia of terrorism, fake copies of Islam, palaeontology, questioning the beliefs of Muslims… etc.).
The eighth motive: the need to benefit and learn from the Western model in renewed intellectual production to maintain its strength and continuity of control over the world, which adopts a system of professional institutional intellectual engines that ensure:
First: Self-criticism and early detection of weaknesses and defects and their correction.
Second: Continuously feeding it intellectually with ideas that can be translated into initiatives and projects, through an institutional system that can collect data and convert it into information that can be worked on intellectually.
For a renewed intellectual production that quickly answers the questions of the age and the future:
1- Internal research and studies centers within each state agency.
2- Knowledge-producing universities, with their basic research plans, exceptional when needed and a large group of researchers from graduate students, experts and consultants.
3- Specialized consulting research centers affiliated with the state, including former leaders and statesmen.
4- Private research and studies centers affiliated with the civil and private sectors.
5- Specialized advisory committees and their specialized work teams to serve specific issues and files.
Important intellectual implications in the vision, mission, objectives, axes of work and achievement of the Forum In 2014, the Forum presented its vision, mission, objectives, axes and areas of work as follows:
Forum vision: The forum should provide the best vital intellectual production that keeps pace with the different needs of the nation to achieve the values of freedom, justice, access to sovereignty and renaissance.
Forum Message: Establishing a permanent dialogue on intellectual and civilizational issues about the reality of the Ummah and its future options, based on an Islamic reference, and a comprehensive contemporary reading to clarify the way for workers and guide them towards achieving the supreme values of Islam and the renaissance and sovereignty of the Ummah.
Objectives of the Forum: Directing intellectual support – documenting and publishing the intellectual production of the papers of the forum’s sessions – forming a network between researchers in Islamic thought for cooperation and integration – highlighting new intellectual and cultural figures from the youth of the nation – creating additional spaces for discussion on important issues for the nation – intellectual communication with the leaders of the nation.
Through a specific series of events:
- Conference every two years in a country.
2- An intellectual seminar every two years in Malaysia.
3- Kuala Lumpur Declaration.
4- Dr. Mahathir Mohamad Annual Award for Best Scientific Research.
5- An electronic platform for the network of researchers in Islamic thought.
Intellectual implications in the vision, mission and objectives of the forum:
1- The Forum talks about providing an appropriate intellectual arena to discuss the important issues of the nation, and to provide renewed intellectual production in the form of research papers and renewed intellectual theses that won their luck from the discussion within the Forum and came out documented in the name of the Forum.
However, the reality of the forum is that it is held over three days only, and the mechanism of discussion depends on the presentation of summaries of papers in minutes and comment and discussion in limited minutes, meaning that it did not take its time to the real scientific discussion necessary for real intellectual production that obtains its right of discussion, revision, development, then accreditation and real scientific documentation that gains strength and effectiveness in content and documentation.
The mechanism of discussion adopts the general popular debate attended by all disciplines without specifying specific scientific disciplines for each paper and provides appropriate scientific degrees capable of specialized discussion of the presented papers, not to mention their needs for long hours that ensure the comprehensiveness and depth of handling and discussion.
2- The Forum talks about intellectual outputs presented in the form of proposed ideas for thought and decision makers, and the reality of the situation raises its question, who are the parties that benefited from the outputs of the previous sessions and research of the Forum and the extent of their effectiveness in reforming in addressing the crises and challenges of the nation?
3- The Forum is an intellectual effort isolated from intellectual, scientific, educational, civil and governmental media reform institutions, as well as from Muslim societies, the executor and ultimate beneficiary of the intellectual product.
4- The forum depends on the efforts of a limited and sincere few of those in charge of it and those who are not fully dedicated to it in a manner befitting the greatness of the vision, mission and goals.
5- The Forum suffers from a lack of resources and loses its strength and effectiveness.
6 – The mission of the Forum can be summarized in being a semi-institutional civil entity working with amateur laws that seeks to produce papers containing intellectual proposals for workers in the Islamic invitation and the revival of the nation’s revival.
7- The Forum does not possess any capabilities and soft powers to face the challenge of disintegration and intellectual dispersion of the nation and to possess the ability to:
– Convincing intellectuals, scientists and researchers to participate actively in the forum as an intellectual incubator capable of compiling and creating an inclusive intellectual project for the nation.
– Persuasion, response and commitment of various Islamic and reformist movements to deal with the intellectual product of the forum.
– Gain the respect and acceptance of governments, states and international institutions.
8- The Forum does not yet have sufficient legitimacy to produce, present and activate the intellectual and civilized product of the nation.
3- The legitimacy necessary to produce and empower civilized thought:
Six integrated legitimacy is what guarantees the power of guidance, influence and achievement of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Civilizational Thought, the Forum and then the Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Cultural Thought is a free global Islamic institution that creates its own legitimacy.
Produce Islamic thought or lead the project of global civilizational Islam.
| 1- Scientific legitimacy. | 2- The legitimacy of impartiality of Islamic International. | 3- The legitimacy of the single intellectual reference. |
| 4- The legitimacy of scientific networking. | 5- The legitimacy of permanent and transparent institutionalism. | 6- Legitimacy of achievement and effectiveness of impact. |
The figure shows the six legitimacy that make up the strong global legitimacy of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Civilizational Thought
Six major legitimacies with thirty practical tools that establish the intellectual presence of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Thought and Civilization:
First: Scientific legitimacy, which is formed through four tools and criteria:
1- The scientific status of the scientific research teams of the institution’s employees.
2- The scientific standard approach and system for the work of the institution, which must comply with the scientific standards of institutions, universities and knowledge-producing centers in the world, ensuring the strength, quality and universality of the product
Intellectual Forum.
3- The number, type and mechanisms of scientific networking with specialized Islamic universities and centers.
4- The quality, appropriateness and effectiveness of the intellectual product in meeting the needs of the Islamic civilizational resurrection.
Second: The legitimacy of impartiality of International Islamic, which constitutes five tools and criteria:
1 – Commitment to the concept and project of the global Islamic Ummah.
2 – Awareness of the internal and external problems and challenges of the Islamic Ummah.
3 – Awareness of the international system, world powers and the laws of world administration.
4 – Transcending the specific ideologies of movements and countries to meet the needs of the nation.
5 – Promoting and empowering the concept of one Islamic nation in the identity and reality of Muslims and imposing it globally.
Third: The legitimacy of the single intellectual reference, which is formed through five tools and criteria:
1 – Conscious intellectual reading of Islamic movements and continuous intellectual efforts over the past century and a half and organized in an integrative and cumulative intellectual framework as a basic structure for the ongoing and future intellectual efforts of the institution.
2 – Work to unify the efforts of the Islamic project of all countries and movements and mobilize them towards one compass and one intellectual project that accommodates, supports and directs all sub-projects.
3 – Develop flexible systems and mechanisms to accommodate all Islamic efforts and projects.
4 – The quality and wisdom of the intellectual product of the institution.
5- Integration with the intellectual efforts of Islamic governmental, civil and private institutions, in a way that convinces and binds Islamic civil movements and institutions in the world and calls on governments to adopt them and deal with them as a comprehensive intellectual reference for Muslims in the world.
Fourth: The legitimacy of networking and accreditation, which is formed through five tools and criteria:
1 – Having a standard system for networking that defines the objectives, principles, destinations, fields and standards of scientific networking.
2- Number of official personalities who are current and former statesmen of the institution.
3 – The number and type of international, governmental, civil and private networking institutions.
4- The quality of networking plans, programs and achievements.
5 – The effectiveness, impact and spread of intellectual products as a result of networking.
Fifth: The legitimacy of a permanent and transparent institution, which is formed through five tools and criteria:
1- The existence of an integrated and fortified institutional system capable of maintaining complete intellectual independence and preventing the penetration of the control of states, sponsors, Islamic movements or individuals, or penetrating the Western international system.
2 – Commitment to the institutional system and maintaining full transparency that enhances the credibility and legitimacy of the institution among Islamic peoples, governments, countries and international institutions.
3- Possessing the intrinsic ingredients for continuity.
4- Recognition of international institutions, states, universities and specialized Islamic centers.
5- Presence, participation and influence of the Foundation in global Islamic issues and events.
Sixth: The legitimacy of achievement and the effectiveness of the impact, which is formed through five tools and criteria:
1- The ability and quality of the intellectual product of the institution to solve the questions of the global Islamic reality, the development of institutional entities, and the performance and achievement of Islamic movements.
2- The number and type of issues to be addressed by the intellectual production of the institution.
3- The number and type of ongoing international Islamic projects under the intellectual framework of the institution.
4- Intellectual and practical achievement achieved by the institution annually.
5- The ability of the institution to explore intellectual issues and prepare for them.
4 – The required transformation.
| M | Domain | The required transformation. From: | TO: |
| 1 | Purpose & Vision | Intellectual production that keeps pace with those working for Islam towards achieving the values of Islam | Producing a comprehensive intellectual project that draws the general framework for the projects and efforts of liberation, development and renaissance of the Islamic Ummah. |
| 2 | Mission & Objectives | Revitalizing the movement of intellectual production of important issues of the nation | – Continuous intellectual production in support of the efforts of movements, institutions and countries seeking to revive the Islamic civilizational resurrection – Owning an Islamic civilized intellectual project that unites the efforts and projects of the workers in the Islamic project in the world – managing, directing and supporting global Islamic efforts and projects in one stream and direction |
| 3 | Methodology | Provide papers and intellectual suggestions | Systematic intellectual production and geostrategic plan translated into practical initiatives and projects that can be implemented and measured – Intellectual partnership, support and evaluation of Islamic and reform efforts, movements and institutions in the world – Representation of contemporary Islamic civilized thought |
| 4 | Mission and role limits | Provide suggestions and motivate researchers to achieve higher values | Renewed intellectual production and documentation – Possessing the soft power necessary to manage and direct reform efforts – Systematic institutional networking with universities and specialized centers – Monitoring, analysis, intellectual production and intellectual cooperation on its implementation, evaluation and development |
| 5 | Entity and adjective | Kuala Lumpur Forum for Thought and Civilization | Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Thought and Civilization – the supreme reference for contemporary Islamic civilizational thought and the main supporting partner of Islamic reform movements in the world |
| 6 | Organizational Structure | A semi-institutional forum with a preliminary regulation that organizes its management and work in accordance with the standards of those in charge of it | A modern, clear and integrated institutional system in accordance with the international standards of the institution – International approaches and standards for managing intellectual production and maximizing its added value – A global institutional network with universities and specialized Islamic centers |
5- The seven criteria for intellectual institutions capable of intellectual production capable of achieving civilizational revival.
I only mention here the names of the criteria without elaboration until conviction is built and a strong will to implement is formed
Among the loyal partners who have responsibility:
1- Institutional standard.
2- The standard of global normative systems in the production of knowledge and continuous intellectual renewal.
3- standard of specialization is precise.
4- standard of impartiality of the basic mother idea (This is your nation, one nation, and I am your Lord, so worship you) Surat Al-Anabiya.
5- Local institutional networking. And international for all concerned, stakeholders and beneficiaries.
6- standard of professionalism.
7- Transparency standard.
6- Transformation Results:
Trust and networks of research institutions.
The results of the transformation of the Forum into an institution specialized in the production of civilizational thought necessary for the scholarship and renaissance of the Ummah at the geographical level globally, and at the level of the growth of Islamic thought, and on the reality and future of the Islamic situation, and then on the added value, trust, intellectual legitimacy and intellectual authority, including what we call the soft power of the Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Civilizational Thought, which will be the backbone to gather the diaspora of Islamic and reform movements towards one direction.
Results of the transition from the Forum to the Kuala Lumpur Foundation for Cultural Thought
| System, scope, areas of work of the institution and its impact | The system and methodology of the institution’s work and intellectual production | Building the organization’s legitimacy, soft power and capacity to act |
First: The work of the institution and its intellectual production:
1- The development of the work system and sections and the stages and procedures of work.
2- Developing methods of knowledge production, documentation and accreditation.
3- Improving the quality of the intellectual product and its understanding of the dimensions of time, place and circumstance.
4- The credibility and acceptance of the intellectual product of the institution among Islamic and reformist movements, peoples and institutions.
International, and then inviting governments and resorting to recognizing and dealing with the institution.
Second: Scope and areas of work of the institution and its impact:
1- The development of the work of the institution from the available to the possible, and the impossible necessary for the revival and renaissance of the nation.
2- The development of the institution’s work according to a strategic map and a scientifically systematic priority plan.
3- Expanding the scope of the Foundation’s work, intellectually to accommodate all Islamic and reform movements, institutionally to include universities, Islamic centers and associations, and geographically to include the whole world.
4- The development of the Foundation’s work to include and link the past with the present, foreseeing the future and preparing for it.
Third: Building the legitimacy of the institution, and its soft capacity to act:
1- Possessing soft power to influence Islamic and reformist movements and participate in managing and directing their compass, systems, methods and methods of work.
2- Possessing a soft power of trust and responsiveness to communicate with peoples, address them and direct their potential towards the compass of revival, liberation and renaissance of the one global Islamic nation.
3- Possessing soft power to force the international system to deal with the institution according to the laws of stampede and conflict.
4- Becoming the first reference for contemporary Islamic civilizational thought.
D.IBRAHEM ELDEEB
